1 . Field of the Art
The present disclosure generally relates to monitoring devices and, more particularly, to dynamically grouping devices based on present device conditions.
2 . Background and Relevant Art
Device manufacturers have typically created hierarchical groups of data to organize the network environment based on criteria such as geography, customer base, service organization, or other similar information that has been used to identify the groups. Earlier, the grouping was created either manually or based on statically entered information about the device. Recent systems have started to use existing parameters to automatically group computing devices based on criteria, such as response time, items in a given group, or transmission distance.
A system for dynamically grouping computing devices is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0193099 to Reus et al. The computing device transmitted a query and received a response including a neighbor-casting group. The group was selected based on predetermined criteria from the computing device. The criteria included the number of computing devices in the selected group, the amount of time between the query and the response from the selected group, or a combination of the number and time. The computing device could select one other group, remove itself from a group, or join the other selected group. The groups are automatically maintained as other devices are added to and removed from a domain or local area network so that no group grows inappropriately large. The group selection focuses solely on response time and number of computing devices in the system.
In a system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,079,010 to Champlin, information technology was monitored. The system included a monitor agent that was configured to collect performance and availability metrics associated with a host machine, a network, an operating system, a database or an application. The metrics were transferred to a data loader by the monitor agent. The monitor agent would generate alerts, which were sent to an escalation server. The alerts received by the escalation server could be grouped based on the metric type. The metrics were compared to configured alert thresholds to generate two types of alerts—a “warning” condition and a “critical” condition. The grouping was static, however, and did not adjust when the status of the information technology changed.
International publication number WO/2006/009402 to NHN Corp. disclosed an event alerting system and a method dynamically grouping for an event alert. An event message was sent to a client when an event was generated by the client or an alerting server. The clients were grouped according to transmission distance to the client by the alerting server. A client list and an alerting data packet were transmitted to master clients selected by the grouping process. The client list and data packet were also transmitted to a master client of an upper group to the last layer, which was established by performing the grouping process again. The groups are dynamically arranged from a generated list based on the transmission distance in each process of grouping the alerts.
In U.S. Pat. Application Publication No. 2006/0200494 to Sparks, a distributed computing system is disclosed that conforms to a multi-level, hierarchical organizational model. Control nodes provide automated allocation and management of computing functions and resources within the distributed computing system in accordance with the organization model. The model includes four distinct levels: fabric, domain, tiers, and nodes. These levels provide for logical abstraction and containment of physical components as well as system and service application software of the enterprise. An administrator interacts with the control nodes to logically define the hierarchical organization of the distributed computing system. The control node detects the node added to the network and automatically identifies attributes for the detected node. This system, however, does not dynamically group devices based on changes associated with the device.
Related technologies have used systems that group devices in various areas. For example, remote device management systems have been used to create hierarchical groupings for such things as device access (authorization), alert escalation, bulk device operations (e.g., content distribution and communication scheduling), and business workflow management.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one exemplary technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.